Whatever sort of prime minister David Cameron makes, we already know one thing for sure: he must already be the world's worst poker player. Never in British political history has a negotiator playing for such stakes so comprehensively thrown away his hand before the game even began. Purely because Cameron was desperate to get himself into Number 10, and thus shield himself, with the Downing Street patronage machine, from the entirely justified anger of his party for failing to win a majority against Gordon Brown last Thursday, he has given into more Lib Dem demands than even Labour were willing to stomach. From whipping Tory MPs through in support of a referendum on AV, the number and nature of cabinet places he's going to give to the Liberals, to surrendering the bedrock of the Westminster system – by giving way on fixed parliaments – Cameron gains office but not power.

As is evident from even a cursory examination of the three parties' positions, the Lib Dems and Labour are closer to one another in virtually every regard than either is to the Tory party. Yet now we are to have a coalition government between us and the Liberals. And it's a coalition the Lib Dems are delighted to be in, and why shouldn't they be? From European policy to electoral reform Cameron has, even before the government begins, given away so much that the least Tory party on the constitution and the most pro-EU party is content to make him Prime Minister.

Given that Labour, in refusing to meet Lib Dem demands, explicitly cited excessive Liberal spending plans, it's enormously depressing from a Tory point of view to consider what's going to give way. Either, no serious effort is going to be made to address the deficit, or, in order to finance Lib Dem policy goals, Tory ambitions, most noticeably as regards defence, will have to bear the brunt of even beginning to try and make the sums add up. Now is not the time I fear to have shares in Aircraft Carriers.

The worst thing about this whole process, other than the wholesale abandonment of principle by Cameron, has been the political inadequacy it reveals. Had he simply, when the results were known, said that he would not offer Clegg a coalition, the Lib Dem leader would have had no choice but to take such slight terms as Brown and labour might have felt like offering him. And as and when those fell through, he would have been obliged to come back to Cameron and accept whatever terms the Tory leader was prepared to offer. As it is, solely to serve his own ambition, David Cameron had sold out the Tory party and everything it has historically stood for in order to get himself into Downing Street.

As one last telling detail, while Nick Clegg is now formally consulting his party membership, David Cameron hasn't and won't ask Tory members for their support. There's a very good reason why he won't.